Litsy

LiteraryChanteuse

Morgan Is My Name | Sophie Keetch

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Loved it! 🥰

5 likes

Graywacke

Roman de Silence | Sarah Roche-Mahdi, Heldris (de Cornu�lle.)

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🤫 don‘t wake Nikki.

This is a delightful 13-century Arthurian romance with a female knight, Silence, forced to hide her identity and act a man. Jealous kings, slain dragons, female healers and a wild-man version of Merlin. It was discovered in 1911, a single manuscript in Old French verse in a box marked “old papers - no value”.

dabbe 🖤🐾🖤 2w

Leftcoastzen 👏😻 2w

55 likes2 stack adds2 comments

Dilara

Roman de Silence | Sarah Roche-Mahdi, Heldris (de Cornu�lle.)

Romance written in the 12-13th cent.
Silence is a girl brought up disguised as a boy so she could be her parents' heir. Of course, they are the most valiant, accomplished & virtuous person ever 😁
The King of England likes & values them, but after they reject the Queen's advances, she turns against them & tribulations start.
I thought their gender of birth would be uncovered in battle, as per trope, but no: something stranger & funnier happens 👏

Dilara It's short and not without humour, and very much inspired by Le roman de la rose and Arthurian lore. Just like in Le roman de la rose, there is a lot of casual of misogyny & reflections on the Nature vs Culture debate.
The original is in Old French octosyllabic verse; the version I read is in modern French prose that still retains a medieval flavour.

Picture is a miniature of Joan of Arc, so a couple of centuries later than the book

The Romance of the Rose

(edited) 3w

Graywacke Fantastic! I thoroughly enjoyed the English prose translation. But the misogyny was striking. 3w

Dilara @Graywacke I enjoyed it too! The misogyny was inevitable, given the date of writing, but at least, we weren't repeatedly hit over the head with it like we were in Le roman de la rose 😁 3w

Graywacke @Dilara ha! True. Have you read the Lais of Mary of France? Similar style (in English prose translation) 3w

Dilara @Graywacke I read a couple and I can see the similarities. I even read one translated into English verse in The Penguin Book of Women Poets 😁 (Chievrefueil/Chèvrefeuille, or “honeysuckle“ in modern English, translated literally as “Goat's-leaf“ in the version I read). I mean to read them all at some point 😚

“Wrathful was King Mark,
Angry with Tristan his nephew,
Banished him from the realm
For the love he bore the Queen.“

The Penguin Book of Women Poets

34 likes5 comments

Dilara

Roman de Silence | Sarah Roche-Mahdi, Heldris (de Cornu�lle.)

So far:
- Hébain married the King of Norway's daughter
- Cador slayed the dragon terrorising Winchester, and earned the right to marry the maid of his choosing
- Eufémie cured Cador's illness and earned the right to marry the man of her choosing
- You guessed it: Cador and Eufémie married each other
- Eufémie gave birth to a girl, but they announced a boy - and therefore heir - to the world
Medieval romances FTW!
I'll stop bc spoilers 😋

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HeyT

The Once and Future King | T. H. White

#BookReport
Absolutely loved the book I finished this week! Unfortunately I'm making slower progress with my non audio books.

#WeeklyForecast
My goal this week is to try and finish Black Cake as I need to read it for work. I also want to try and get closer to finishing part 2 of the tagged but it's hard knowing there are two more instances of animal abuse I have to get through.

RosePressedPages I loved Deeplight! The worldbuilding was so imaginative (edited) 4w

21 likes1 comment

Graywacke

Roman de Silence | Sarah Roche-Mahdi, Heldris (de Cornu�lle.)

Now that I‘ve finished Chaucer, I‘ve made the Roman de Silence my morning book. This is a 13th century Old French Arthurian romance in verse. And so far, in translation, it reads a lot like the Lais of Marie de France - that is to say, light and charming.

Texreader 🐈‍⬛❤️ 1mo

Suet624 Impressive 1mo

dabbe 🖤🐾🖤 #lebeauchat 1mo

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Graywacke @Texreader @dabbe she would thank you but, well, she has that goddess attitude cat thing (edited) 1mo

Graywacke @Suet624 it‘s easy, fun reading. 🙂 1mo

Dilara Ooh, I have seen that Silence is in my anthology of medieval love and chivalry writings but I haven't read it yet! Looking forward to your opinion on it 😁 4w

52 likes6 comments

HeyT

The Once and Future King | T. H. White

Doing some backyard reading while the hummingbirds come and feed. I am also excited that I‘ve made it to part two in the tagged.

Eyelit 😍 1mo

29 likes1 comment

xicanti

The Third Magic | Welwyn Wilton Katz

THE THIRD MAGIC was a huge deal for me when I was a kid. I paid SERIOUS MONEY for it at the Book Market (we‘re taking $1.75, compared to

xicanti I‘ve come back to in recent years. The prose, worldbuilding, and story structure give young readers full credit. It feels very Diana Wynne Jones meets Guy Gavriel Kay. I hope it doesn‘t pull any 80s dodginess in the back half. (edited) 1mo

dabbe 🖤🐾🖤 1mo

36 likes1 stack add2 comments

HeyT

Once and Future King | T H White